Great River Road Plantation Tour

We Cross The Mississippi River Twice TO VISIT 3 PLANTATIONS

Price: $200

Tour 3 Plantations

With Lunch Included

Step back in time and re-live the grandeur of the antebellum era as you experience the elegance of area plantations.

Driving out of New Orleans we see the contrast of a city contained by protective levees and surrounded by mysterious cypress swamps. Before crossing the Mississippi River, we travel along the River Road Plantation, framed by its Spanish moss- bedecked oaks and lush grounds where sugar cane fields line the road on the way to tour San Francisco Plantation, one of the most remarkable examples of mid-Nineteenth Century architecture in Louisiana. Its extraordinary painted work includes ornate ceiling murals, fine detail woodgraining and faux marbling ornamentation. It will leave you in awe.

A few miles upriver we pass under the Sunshine Bridge – named for Governor Jimmy Davis’ ever popular "You Are My Sunshine". Then we pass by Tezcuco Plantation. Tezcuco, meaning "Resting Place", is a delightful intimate home, where you have the feeling that you are an invited guest.This plantation got burned.

Just up the road we visit Houmas House Plantation, perhaps the home that most resembles the look of the "typical Southern plantation house", with surrounding peach columns and roof top belvedere. Approached through the colorful gardens, the house tour gives you an up-close look at beautiful antiques and artwork and a way of life that is gone but not forgotten. Betty Davis immortalized "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte." The traditional Southern Plantation Houmas, is known today as the Sugar Castle.

We cross the Mississippi River and then we travel on to magnificent Nottoway, the largest plantation in the south, with 65 rooms and over 53,000 square feet. Once a 7,000-acre sugar plantation, Nottoway displays magnificent antiques and ornate detailing that vividly portray the grandeur that once was. There is even time for a gift shop visit.

Evening is near and its time to put away the hoop-skirts. But on our way back to the present – and your hotel – we’ll see many more sights along the river, the wetlands, and Lake Pontchartrain.